Cloud Computing (Infoworld)

Amazon Web Services has cut the cost of storing data using its Simple Storage Service (S3) -- saving users with 50 TB stored on the service around 12 percent on their monthly bill, the company said on Monday.

Demos, like appearances, can be deceiving. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, one of the media hits was OnLive Desktop, a service that provisions a Windows 7 desktop environment that includes Microsoft Office 2010 to the iPad over an Internet connection.

We've all seen the PowerPoint presentations that show the business advantages of cloud computing: the ability to avoid hardware and software purchases (opex vs. capex), speed to deployment, elasticity, and so on. However, unless you're prepared to provide real numbers that define real value, that's so much fluff to those in the executive suite.

As I develop these business cases for enterprises, I've found some commonality or emerging patterns to consider. Here are my top three secrets to developing your cloud computing business case and getting it accepted.

Around this time last year, the cloud computing contract signings were coming fast and furious -- not just for commodity work like IT management or email, but for software and infrastructure closer to the core of corporate value. Not long after that, the calls started to come in to Greg Bell, the Americas service leader for information protection at KPMG.

Cloudyn is launching a hosted service on Monday that aims to monitor a company's cloud usage and recommend ways to optimize that usage in order to cut costs.

The service is available initially for Amazon Web Services customers, and Cloudyn plans to add support for Rackspace in the second quarter, and other providers after that. The service will be free until May 1, after which customers will have to pay for the optimization recommendations. Anyone can sign up for the service now.

Dell's formation of a new software group, which was announced Thursday, could be the forerunner to a string of acquisitions by the vendor, with some observers predicting a focus on systems management and cloud services provisioning.

That there is growing company demand for cloud or software-as-a-service solutions should come as no surprise.

Finance and IT professionals, facing the need for greater computing power for everything from operational management to hedge accounting are understandably tempted by SaaS, given the cloud's relatively low startup costs and the fact they may lack the skills needed to build their own analytic solutions.

That there is growing company demand for cloud or software-as-a-service solutions should come as no surprise.

Finance and IT professionals, facing the need for greater computing power for everything from operational management to hedge accounting are understandably tempted by SaaS, given the cloud's relatively low startup costs and the fact they may lack the skills needed to build their own analytic solutions.

That there is growing company demand for cloud or software-as-a-service solutions should come as no surprise.

Finance and IT professionals, facing the need for greater computing power for everything from operational management to hedge accounting are understandably tempted by SaaS, given the cloud's relatively low startup costs and the fact they may lack the skills needed to build their own analytic solutions.

In anticipation of offering its open-source content management software as a service, Alfresco has upgraded its namesake product to work with multiple clients and to interact with a wider range of form factors, the company announced Thursday.

"Alfresco Enterprise 4.0 is the foundational element in our cloud strategy," said Todd Barr, Alfresco chief marketing officer. The company is preparing to offer the CMS (content management software) as SaaS (software as a service) by April or May this year.

In anticipation of offering its open-source content management software as a service, Alfresco has upgraded its namesake product to work with multiple clients and to interact with a wider range of form factors, the company announced Thursday.

"Alfresco Enterprise 4.0 is the foundational element in our cloud strategy," said Todd Barr, Alfresco chief marketing officer. The company is preparing to offer the CMS (content management software) as SaaS (software as a service) by April or May this year.

In anticipation of offering its open-source content management software as a service, Alfresco has upgraded its namesake product to work with multiple clients and to interact with a wider range of form factors, the company announced Thursday.

"Alfresco Enterprise 4.0 is the foundational element in our cloud strategy," said Todd Barr, Alfresco chief marketing officer. The company is preparing to offer the CMS (content management software) as SaaS (software as a service) by April or May this year.

Google Docs users can now get offline access to documents on their Android-based smartphones and tablets, Google said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The upgraded app makes offline access possible for Google documents, presentations, spreadsheets, uploaded images, and file formats such as pdf, doc, xls, and ppt, according to Google.

Google Docs users can now get offline access to documents on their Android-based smartphones and tablets, Google said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The upgraded app makes offline access possible for Google documents, presentations, spreadsheets, uploaded images, and file formats such as pdf, doc, xls, and ppt, according to Google.

Google Docs users can now get offline access to documents on their Android-based smartphones and tablets, Google said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The upgraded app makes offline access possible for Google documents, presentations, spreadsheets, uploaded images, and file formats such as pdf, doc, xls, and ppt, according to Google.

The news hit this week: "As of the end of 2011, there are 762 billion objects in Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). We process over 500,000 requests per second for these objects at peak times," blogged Amazon.com This represents an annual growth rate of 192 percent.

The news hit this week: "As of the end of 2011, there are 762 billion objects in Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). We process over 500,000 requests per second for these objects at peak times," blogged Amazon.com This represents an annual growth rate of 192 percent.

The news hit this week: "As of the end of 2011, there are 762 billion objects in Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). We process over 500,000 requests per second for these objects at peak times," blogged Amazon.com This represents an annual growth rate of 192 percent.

VMTurbo has upgraded its operations management suite to support the three major virtual environments and to improve its capacity-planning tool.

With the new 3.0 version of Operations Manager, the software can now manage Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware's vSphere individually or in multi-hypervisor deployments, the company says. This version adds XenServer to its capabilities.

VMTurbo has upgraded its operations management suite to support the three major virtual environments and to improve its capacity-planning tool.

With the new 3.0 version of Operations Manager, the software can now manage Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware's vSphere individually or in multi-hypervisor deployments, the company says. This version adds XenServer to its capabilities.